The Private Financing Advisory Network (PFAN) launches its third annual West Africa Forum for Clean Energy Financing (WAFCEF-3) business competition.

PFAN is a multilateral public private partnership, initiated by the Climate Technology Initiative and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The institution has been established to nurture promising, innovative clean and renewable energy projects by bridging the gap between investors and clean energy entrepreneurs and project developers.

The launch of the competition was announced during the recently concluded ECOWAS Sustainable Energy Week held in Ghana.

The competition is open to all businesses and entrepreneurs operating and registered in any of the ECOWAS countries as well as foreign individuals and entities with projects in those countries.

According to the African Development Bank, the competition is being supported by Power Africa, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Private Financing Advisory Network (PFAN), the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA), and the ECOWAS Regional Centre for Renewable Energy Efficiency (ECREEE).

Clean energy competition rules

The AfDB stated that only clean energy proposals requiring an initial capital investment in excess of $1million are eligible.

Shortlisted projects will attend a project development and financing workshop and will receive free individual professional mentoring to further develop their business plans, the bank explained.

During the final event that will take place in 2017, up to ten winners will present their business plans to investors, industry specialists and business executives interested in funding clean energy.

The private sector judges will select the top three projects to receive West African Clean Energy Financing awards.

Previous winners

The winner of the first round, honoured in 2013 was SMEFUNDS GEB (Small and Medium Entrepreneurship Fundamentals – Green Energy and Biofuels).

The Nigerian start-up was the first cooking fuel production facility to produce bio-ethanol gel cooking fuel from waste products.

The start-up was awarded a SEFA grant of $580,000 to support advisory and technical studies for business expansion.

The second WAFCEF competition was held in 2015 and the winner was Ivoire Hydro Energy, a project developer in Côte d’Ivoire, proposing the design, construction and operation of a 44MW hydropower plant on the country’s Bandama River.

Deadline for the submission of the application with an excel project data sheet is due by Monday, 12 December 2016.

Originally published on ESI Africa